Most-Merciful and Ever-Loving God
Listen to the cry and hear the plea of Your people.
WE, MEDIA ORGANIZATIONS, journalists, press freedom advocates and academics, raise our collective voice and declare our opposition to government requiring journalists to secure accreditation from the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) to be exempted from the enhanced community quarantine. While we recognize the gravity of the situation, we assert that this imposition is unnecessary, unreasonable and unconstitutional.
We believe that blocking ABS-CBN’s franchise renewal is part of the ongoing assault of the administration on the media. From the unrelenting attacks against media organization Rappler, to the nonstop red-tagging and arrests of community journalists in the past months, as well as the cyberattacks on alternative news sites, it is apparent that the Duterte administration will stop at nothing to intimidate the media and invoke a chilling effect on its critics.
The voice in the wilderness echoes in the hollow recesses of the hearts of the human world that is filled with material want and hate. Such is the voice of the ministers at the United Church of Christ in the Philippines South Eastern Mindanao Jurisdiction Area (UCCP SEMJA), who have chosen to follow Jesus in His work with the poor and powerless.
The Philippine chapter of the International Association of Women in Radio and Television (IAWRT) joins the Filipino people in calling out justice for the victims of the Ampatuan massacre.
On December 19, the day set by the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 221 for the promulgation of its much-awaited verdict on the Ampatuan massacre, it will be 10 years and 25 days since the killings occurred in Maguindanao on November 23, 2009.
THE STATE OF MEDIA FREEDOM in the Philippines under the Duterte Administration remains a tragic story as new and more cases of attacks and threats continue, with marked uptick for certain incidents.
Ten years ago, 58 persons including 32 journalists and one human rights lawyer, were brutally killed in Sitio Masalay, Ampatuan in Maguindanao, in what is now considered the deadliest attack on journalists and worst case of election-related violence in Philippine history.
It has been a dark decade of injustice for families and loved ones of the victims of the Ampatuan massacre, which killed 58 individuals, 32 of them journalists.
We are among the less vulnerable sector in this time of disaster yet we are shaken not by the tremors of the earth under our feet but by the “red tagging” of the AFP. MISFI is listed as #7 in the never ending list of Local Terrorist Front organizations.
